This morning I gathered two of my very introspective friends to do a group journaling zoom session. I often journal alone in the mornings to unlock my thoughts and start my day off in a free-flowing way but this morning I was inspired to bring a few others into the experience. I’ve done these sessions before and they always leave me feeling deeply connected with the group and also deeply appreciative of the material. I try to pick prompts that are uplifting or highly introspective. After we conclude our eight minutes of silent journaling, we come back to the zoom and share and comment on each others. I often find that we cover similar material but say it in different ways. This morning our prompt was “Write a short love letter to some object or place that makes you happy.” One thread that unraveled for all of us was this notion that nature brings us back to our core sense of happiness, fulfillment and wisdom. I spoke heavily about a singular place in nature that draws a beautiful picture in my hippocampus’s temporal lobe. Stephen spoke about his appreciation for anything involving nature, choosing rather not to specify but encompass all of its many forms and senses. Evan actually spoke about his love for his books and how they unlock his brain in a portal to outside the world. He also described his happiest moments when he has a book out in nature. All of us concluding to a similar appreciation but arriving via different floatation devices. Funny that for all three of us hard charging city people, we all yearn for the mountains, lakes or beaches.
Because I enjoy sharing pretty much everything…here was my journal:
“A place that makes you happy is a time piece. I need to frame this question for myself first. I always have to do that to make sure I feel like I'm optimizing the answer. There are places in my life where I have both been overjoyed at a given time or a place that has had me in complete anxiety disarray. A place is a figment of our brains interpreting the visual world and the mental chemistry of our mind infusing in our emotions. How that picture resolutes depends on the day. Margate at a time in my life was a happy place. It represented freedom and excitement. It later represented something entirely different. It became a figment of the past and something that I'm glad I experienced but not a place I'll flock to forever. I know of one place that was my happy place and likely IS my happy place if I continue to go back to it. That place is Lake Tahoe. I've always fantasized about Lake Tahoe. Ever since I was a young kid I told my mom I wanted to live in Lake Tahoe. I was enamored by a mountain town surrounded by peaks and a massive natural lake right in the center. I first experienced it when I was 22 and I was truly enamored by its beauty. I later returned at 26 and that really solidified it for me. Skiing alone. I was a stranger in a loved land. As I write the word loved land, I think of Israel. Wow, Israel didn't even pop right into my head. Israel is not my happy place, its my meaningful place. Very different in my eyes. I see Tahoe as a place to grow old. I see Tahoe as a place of pure relaxation mixed with adventure. When I went out there and I was skiing by myself, I remember sitting at the top of one of the slopes at the old olympic village, I forget its name, and looking out on a crystal blue day at the shimmering lake. Wow what a sight. I was talking to myself. I remember pausing my music and just saying "WOAHHH" this is majestic. I was in heaven. Maybe that's why one of their mountains is called Heavenly. Anyway, Tahoe is something special. I loved the little ski town and getting a chance to meet strangers, listen to post-ski music out on the town square. I just love the idea of a summer town and a winter town nestled in the hills with a body of water. Beaches don't do it for me. I can attest to that by living in CA. It's nice and all but it doesn't bring me tranquility. Lakes and mountains do it for me. When I get my chance to go to Tahoe again I know I'll be giddy with excitement. I hold it in such high regard. I almost don't want it to lose that level of special meaning by over-stamping its passport. I want to treat it like a treat. So many things to me in life are like that. I live for new experiences and if you over use a great experience, its taste can become dull to the senses. I want to continue to give light to this place in my head and I'll always remember that feeling of looking at that emerald shining lake.”